What is (or what should be) the purpose of the National Guard?

Great Debates
1

Until this latest deployment, I always assumed the purpose of the National Guard was to provide for the defense of the United States–and by defense, I mean defense. Not going off to stop threats in foreign lands, but rather actually having military forces within the borders of the U.S. that can respond to direct attacks upon our homeland (i.e., let the regular Army go invade Vietnam, but make sure you leave the National Guard at home just in case the Russkies decide to invade while 75% of your troops are distracted in Southeast Asia).

By this reckoning, I’ve always considered the use of the National Guard overseas–esp., as it appears to me now, as a permanent supplement to active-duty troops–irresponsible and unwise.

However, I’ve recently heard people argue that the Guard is not intended for homeland defense, but rather is meant to be part of ANY major military action: The idea being that the burden such a deployment places on the Guard members, their families, employers, and communities is intentionally so great that it will help to serve as a check on frivolous military adventures. (The alternative being that the regular military–much expanded to compensate for having no Guard troops at its disposal–would be more likely to be used, and we’d be getting involved in even more conflicts.)

But this, while perhaps true, seems like justification after the fact. What do people here think the Guard’s purpose is and should be?

2

Here is thestatement of purpose for the Nevada National Guard. I assume other state’s Guard puposes are similar. The Guard is what is referred to in the Constitution of the US as “militia.”

They are subject to federalization by Congress or by the President in national emergencies of all kinds. Unfortunately impeachment is the only real check on the President federalizing various guard units for purposes such as dubious adventures in places like Iraq. And impeachment is such a blunt instrument that its unlikely to be used and certainly not with a Republican Congress.

[joke]Of course, Congress could refuse to appropriate money for guard units called up by the President if that is thought needed as a check on Presidential foolishness.[/joke]

3

Hold on. If the National Guard is what the Constitution meant by “a well-regulated militia”, then I’m the Easter Bunny. There’s no way in hell that they are - otherwise the Second Amendment wouldn’t protect private gunowners at all.

4

Under the powers of Congress are the following:

Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Clause 15 has been expanded by usage to include general defense of the US. When Wilson asked for a declaration of war because of the German U-boat maybe the sinkings off our coast were termed “invasions.” I don’t know.

I think your post is a quibble since the Constitution empowers Congress to call the militia for defense and to prescribe their organization, arming and disciplining and for the militia’s regulation when they are called into service of the United States. That is exactly what describes the National Guards of the various states.

5

OK, OK, Let me get this straight, we have:

The main armed forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, & Coast Guard).

A reserve for each of the aforementioned.

An extra reserve; the Air and Army National Guards

3 Auxiliaries (One for air, land, and sea [plus another for radio but that ain’t important right now])

Certain states with their own military defense forces separate from the National Guards.
WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?:confused:

What is the point of complicating things by having separate organizations that do, or almost do, the exact same thing as another organization. From what I understand the primary difference between National Guards and the traditional reserve is that National Guards are controlled by states and the reserves by the federal government. The difference between National Guards and State militias is that National Guards can be transferred to the federal government but State Militias are completely controlled by states and not are part of the US Armed Forces.

Why!? Was “who controls who” such a big issue that they had to have completely separate organizations; what’s with the complication? Other countries don’t have that problem. I don’t know for sure but I actually think that it is more expensive that way (correct me if I’m wrong). Yeah, yeah, I know that the National Guard has a long history and such, so why don’t the reserves just merge with the National Guard.

And do states really need militias; one is only supposed to fight for one’s own nation, not for one’s state. You can have pride in your state, just not not to the point of nationalism and having a military. I know the chance of a civil war is practically none, but we’re talking about states have their own freaking militaries. I’m not against states funding and administrating parts of the national military, I’m just against them owning their own militaries.

I’m still pretty vague about what the auxiliary is though…

6

Having a State National Guard provides an intermediate step for fighting major crimes, like serious civic riots. The local police can’t handle it, and yet we really don’t want to unleash the Federal Military if we can possibly avoid it. This gives an option in between. It allows the State Governor to “save face.” He can say that he handled it without having to go to Washington.

Same for reacting to natural disasters. If the State can handle it, it should. But if the scale is beyond the scope of what the State can handle, well, we have the Army there to help if they have to.

It all seems like a good example of the expanding scope of sovereignty. Even the most ardent Federalist favors the States retaining control of most local-scale issues.

7

[QUOTE=MrWonderphul]
What is the point of complicating things by having separate organizations that do, or almost do, the exact same thing as another organization. From what I understand the primary difference between National Guards and the traditional reserve is that National Guards are controlled by states and the reserves by the federal government. The difference between National Guards and State militias is that National Guards can be transferred to the federal government but State Militias are completely controlled by states and not are part of the US Armed Forces.
[/QUOTE]

Sort of answers the OPs question here…what’s the point? The point is to provide a reserve for the regular armed forces that can be called upon in a time of emergency, of course. And does so at a rather large discount, since you don’t have to pay for those folks continuously, unless you use them. You don’t have to constantly feed or house them either…again, unless you need them.

As for why we need state militias verse the federal National Guard or Reserve, well…that gets back to states rights and control. I’d say the real need is in rapid response…a state militia is obviously going to be more responsive in terms of calling them up and deploying them to some emergency in the state than the Nation Guard is going to be.
From the OP:

Well, obviously your impression was incorrect. Not sure where you got that from, but the National Guard has always acted as a reserve the Army. Basically, it’s a large pool of trained personnel that can be used, at need, to fill in the gaps the Army might face in personnel if we are in a conflict that is drawing down too far on the military. And at a bargain price, in general, since the NGs budget is a hell of a lot smaller than the Army’s is. Same with the various Reserve organization…basically just a fall back in case they are needed, so that the Navy, Army, etc can get trained personnel if they need them due to personnel shortfalls. Also, on the domestic side, it’s often easier to activate the Guard and have them help out with some disaster than it is to send in the Army…and it’s also cheaper, which is probably the main driving force behind all of this. IMHO anyway.

8

OK, that does make sense I have to admit, the whole intermediate step part. Thank you, your answer was the best I have ever gotten. But there are some things I want to address: why don’t they just merge the federal reserves with the National Guard. The National Guard is the “intermediate step” and a reserve, the federally-owned reserves are just reserves.

The sections you quoted me on was actually talking about the separate state militias that are not the National Guard. There are already National Guards, why are there state defense forces?

And the example you gave on major riots and disasters, why is there no naval national guard (for the states where it applies), I’m pretty sure they can apply to flooding and stuff… unless the coast guard already manages that.

9

Your explaining to me why we have a reserves; thank you for the explanation but what I really asked for is why are there so many reserves. After reading Trinopus’ and XT’s post, my comprehension of the purposes of these organizations changed.

Federally-owned reserves: reserves for the US Armed Forces.

National Guard: Militia used for state-level issues as well as a reserve for the US Armed Forces

State Defense Forces: Militia used for state-level issues but independent of the US Armed Forces.

Wouldn’t it be simpler just to merge to merge the other two to the National Guard?

10

[QUOTE=MrWonderphul]
And the example you gave on major riots and disasters, why is there no naval national guard (for the states where it applies), I’m pretty sure they can apply to flooding and stuff… unless the coast guard already manages that.
[/QUOTE]

There IS a ‘navy national guard’…it’s called the Navy Reserve. The reason it’s not on par with the National Guard is that, really, why would you need one? As you noted, we have the Coast Guard already, which does routine patrolling of the coast line, SAR and such. States also have local agencies for other types of water ways (plus you have the Port Authority), and you just don’t need a large naval force for anything else that goes beyond what the Coast Guard and regular Navy already do. Flooding and stuff, as you put it is already handled by other agencies…including the National Guard. :wink:

Probably it would be more efficient and simpler to do so, yes, though I think a case can be made that a local militia type force that can be called up more rapidly within and by a state is a reasonable justification. But, even if you discount that, getting the states to give this up would be a pure stone cold bitch, I should think, so it’s probably a non-starter from a political/practical perspective.

11

I was not suggesting to get rid of the National Guard, in fact, I was suggesting the exact opposite. Merge the Army and Air Reserves with the National Guard along with the extra State Defense Militias.

And nobody has yet explained what auxiliaries are!

12

I am Air National Guard and we have always been told that they can use us for law enforcement type missions when we are on Title 32 (state) orders, but not on Title 10 (federal) orders because of the Posse Comitatus Act. It doesn’t forbid it, but there are restrictions for federal troops not placed on state troops. I was on duty in New Orleans for 5 months patrolling on Title 32 orders after Katrina.

MrWonderphul, I only know of three axillaries, Merchant Marine, Civil Air Patrol, and MARS (Military Affiliate Radio Service). They are civilian organizations that are overseen (don’t know how) by the DOD. They provide some services that are similar to their DOD counterparts, but due to their non-combat roles (although don’t tell that to the MM’s from WWII) they have very few restrictions on who can join, and no PT tests, etc.

13

It is and it shouldn’t and it didn’t until the ultra right wing took over the Supreme Court and delivered the dreadful Heller ruling.

14

:stuck_out_tongue:

15

Well?

Why or why not would it be a good idea to merge the state militias and the traditional reserves into the National Guard!?

16

I think it’s about power and control, just like everything else in government. The state doesn’t want to give up the militias that they have total control over, and the feds don’t want to give up a reserve force that they don’t have to share… honestly I’m more surprised they agree to share the National Guard.

17

One thing is that the Natl. Guard units of the various states can be Federalized, and are for all intents and purposes, part of the Army.

State Defense Forces are completely and utterly part of the state government; they can’t be federalized, and can’t be deployed outside the state.

That’s probably why they’re not combined, and why the states with them would fight it tooth and nail.
Historically, they were combined though- in “the militia”. Sometime after the Spanish-American War, but before WWI, the National Guard system came into being, with the intent of having more uniform training and equipment, since until then, this was totally at the whim of the individual states. This meant that some units were well trained and equipped, but others were essentially social clubs.

The other reason was to provide a clear chain of command in time of war; they didn’t like the way that the Civil War militia units were answerable to both the Feds and the state governors at the same time.

They added funding to the state militias toward this end. I suspect the State defense forces are wholly state-funded, and consequently are more like MP companies than actual combat units.

18

The way it was explained when I was in the military was: Active duty personnel would be deployed to engage the enemy, the Reserves would backfill the deployed units here at home, and the civil service was there to maintain continuity. The Guard belongs to the states.
With a smaller active duty force, it seems like they are trying to keep some well trained, well armed active duty troops available in case of the need to deploy them to another conflict in another location. This last part is a guess, but makes sense.

19

I can only speak of the NY sate militia, because it’s the only one I know anything about. It’s purpose is to have a trained state force to do what the NY NG does when on state orders that is available even if the NY NG has been federalized and is thus unavailable to the state. The level of training (and thus cost) is much lower, since they don’t need to know how to fight a war, merely how to deal with riots and natural disasters. I imagine other states have theirs for the same reason. And would be loathe to have them merged with the NG, because it would defeat the purpose.

20

OK, let’s see here, what I kind of understood from you guys was that the current system makes it cheaper. I thought that by merging them it would make it cheaper but, as Cheshire Human described it, the National Guard is responsible for learning combat as well as riots, natural disaster, etc. on the state level. The State Defense Militia only needs to be trained in the latter and not in combat therefore saving money in training.

As to why some states have these and other don’t, I guess it is that most states don’t need them.

mmmbeer didn’t quite understand the question.

I would imagine that the federal reserves are trained only in combat but I am pretty sure that the military is trained for riots and natural disaster. Maybe the National Guard is trained for smaller scale ones, someone please explain the difference between the training of the National Guard and the reserves.